Film, Music Industries Backing Off Smaller U.K. Pirates?

Consumers who do not broadly download music files are not of interest to the international recording industry and will likely not be sued for copyright violations, a senior executive for the agency said Wednesday. Representatives of the U.K. film industry also acknowledged that they also would likely not take action against customers who "camcord", or record movies playing in a U.K. movie theater with a video camcorder.

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LONDON -- Consumers who do not broadly download music files are not of interest to the international recording industry and will likely not be sued for copyright violations, a senior executive for the agency said Wednesday.

Speaking at a panel at the Digital Hollywood Europe show in London, Paul Jessop, the chief technology officer for the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) said that, to date, the agency has not filed any suits against music downloaders. Representatives of the U.K. film industry also acknowledged that they also would likely not take action against customers who "camcord", or record movies playing in a U.K. movie theater with a video camcorder.

According to Jessop, users who upload a file to a server risk the legal ire of the IFPI, but those that pick and choose individual files for download via a Web browser are not worth the effort. "Web browser downloading is not of interest to us," Jessop told a panel audience.

Jessop said that the agency would prosecute consumers that uploaded songs to the Internet, however, including peer-to-peer file sharing. Applications such as Kazaa, BitTorrent, and others usually require users to share whole files or pieces of files, distributing the bandwidth load among different computers. The agency also has a different division dedicated to stamping out large-scale CD duplication efforts.

While Hollywood and the U.S. aggressively moves to stamp out piracy, Europe has taken a markedly more tolerant view of the rights of consumers. In June, for example, a group of Scandinavian countries led by Norway argued that iTunes should be opened up to allow copies of purchased music to be played on any device, while France has also argued that Apple's service hurts competition.

Although the IFPI is an international body, its secretariat is headquartered in the United Kingdom, whose strict privacy laws have sometimes muffled the strident anti-piracy cries of its counterparts in other countries, including the RIAA and MPAA. However, the IFPI and the RIAA have issued joint statements in the past, including a joint condemnation of a 2003 Morpheus/Grokster ruling. RIAA representatives weren't available for comment Wednesday evening.

However, the IFPI's relaxed stance toward the prosecution of music piracy isn't an indication that the agency has shifted its position, but merely clarified its enforcement tactics. Instead, Jessop said that its campaign of educating consumers had created a legal and moral framework that would help its cases. "It is implied and understood that piracy is outside the law, and that 'I'm sorry, I didn't realize [it was illegal]' is not a valid excuse," he said.

Moreover, Jessop said that his agency believed in the concept of fair use, which allows for private copying or "backing up" content owned by the consumer. "We see private copying as irrelevant," he said. "You get all the rights you need [to copy music] when you buy it."

However, Jessop's statements were made just weeks after a new application was released allowing hidden MP3s scattered across the Web to be downloaded with  a Web browser. In early November, an application called Reperia was released, touting itself as an "OpenDir Search Terminal". Only two types of files can be searched for, however: e-books and MP3 files.
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